I never thought I would blog but I thought I would give it a try and use this great communication tool to update parents, student members who have missed meetings and the general community about what we are up to on a weekly basis.
We went to Novi High School for the kickoff event. I stayed in the afternoon to give a seminar as I have done for the last two years. Some students took the kit of parts home and did the inventory. I spent the rest of the day reading the rules. The game turned out to be exactly what we prepared for in the off-season. Since the game in the last two years that we have participated in FRC did not require the use of an arm, we decided to practice building a robot with an arm. We studied the robots from 2007 Rack and Roll from the book that was published and watched a lot of videos on The Blue Alliance.
On Sunday and Monday, we gathered to brainstorm. We have a well defined process that we used that we found was quite successful in identifying what robot features are important in the game. We also went over the rules to establish a common understanding.
By Monday night, I had worked out the size and shape of the robot. I also worked out the drive system and speed and pushing force target. By Wednesday the CAD leader on our team already finished most of the CAD model. By Friday we already started building the chassis. By Saturday we finished cutting the aluminum pieces for the frame and arm. Compared to a year ago we are two weeks ahead of schedule. You have to feel good when that happens.
Week One was great!